ritche wrote:2) Does pinging and submit your blog to directories is the same thing?

For the submission, you only submit to blog directories one time once you have created your blog to introduce your blog to blog directories.

For the pinging - You can use pinging several times once you have your new post on your blog. It is means you let directories know if your blog has new post. And also let search engines to index your new post of your blog. For pinging service, go to http://pingomatic.com

To make your blog get indexed by major search engines and even get top ranking of them for particular keyword, you must pay attention to important factors:
1. keyword - choose keyword that have high demand and low competition. And related to your product or service you promote.
2. domain, description & content - related to your keyword that you choose. You can use the keyword to domain of your blog. Put the keyword in content several times, but don't spam this. And also put the keyword in description of blog 1-3 times.
3. income links - without this, your blog never get indexed by major search engines. To get top ranking of major search engines for the keyword, your blog need hundreds or even thousands of income links from other websites that have high PR and related to your blog.

I agree with you Link building is one of the important tactic to drive more traffic to your site. Along with this there are few more tactics such as blog marketing, video marketing, web 2.0 marketing, social marketing, internet marketing which also helps you to drive maximum traffic.

but what i would do is create a mastersheet somewhere. in your mastersheet, put your username and password for all the sites you join. of course, dont make it available online, and even keep it off your computer altogether if you can. start with perhaps 25 of the bigger sites and regularly make visits and post something on them. remember to plaster your face on everything as well. you could become 'just another link' if you don't. personality.... yeah.....

but what i would do is create a mastersheet somewhere. in your mastersheet, put your username and password for all the sites you join. of course, dont make it available online, and even keep it off your computer altogether if you can. start with perhaps 25 of the bigger sites and regularly make visits and post something on them. remember to plaster your face on everything as well. you could become 'just another link' if you don't. personality.... yeah.....

If your blog is an acclaimed hit you don't have to look back.Blogger itself has an array of settings, many of which work to your advantage in this endeavor. This first grouping is quite simple and just requires that you sign in to your Blogger account and flip a few switches.Weblogs.com is a blog update notification service that many individuals and services use to track blog changes. When your setting is activated, Blogger will notify weblogs.com that you have updated your blog. That means your blog will be included in various "recently updated" lists on the web as well as other blog-related services.Traffic-grabbing techniques is a little more persnickety and not as readily activated. The basic gist of this section of methods is "If you build it well they will come." You'll need to incorporate the other aspects of self-promotion, but it's true that writing a great blog goes a long way towards repeat visitors and word of blog.Write quality content and do it well.If your "style" is bad writing, worse grammar, no punctuation, and an ugly design, that might be okay for a niche crowd. But the idea here is to get a big crowd so fix yourself up a bit, pull it together man, have some respect for your readers, and discover a style that shines brightly through good blogging.The other factors you need to keep in mind while blogging on the net are:
1)Publish regular updates 2)Think of your audience.3)Keep search engines in mind 4)Keep your posts and paragraphs short. Be unique and be sure that your data is content relative.Another samll topic that creeps up in my mind now is prefference.Well just like other bloggers who blog through common and basic accounts I to have a preffered account.